1 001 
D3 


THE  SUPREME  IMPORTANCE 
OF  READING 


BY 

JOHN  COTTON  DANA 

Newark,  New  Jersey 


• 


Reprinted  from  the   Pedagogical  Seminary 
March,  1913,  Vol.  XX,  pp.  17-22 


THE  SUPREME  IMPORTANCE  OF  READING 


By  John  Cotton  Dana,  Newark,  New  Jersey 


Men's  brains  have  probably  not  improved  in  size  and  quality 
in  the  past  5,000  years.  The  social,  economic,  political,  scien- 
tific and  artistic  life  of  the  civilizations  of  Egypt,  Assyria, 
Greece,  and  Rome,  seem  to  have  been  as  complex,  broad,  and 
full,  in  all  essential  matters,  as  our  own.  Individual  men 
played  their  parts  in  those  civilizations  as  readily,  as  easily 
and  as  completely  as  they  do  in  ours  to-day. 

Before  history  disclosed  this  fact,  the  study  of  the  method 
of  human  development  had  indicated  that  history  must  in 
due  course  bring  it  to  light.  It  had  shown  that  improvement 
of  the  brain,  the  physical  basis  of  mind,  has  always  been 
dependent  on  the  continuance  of  physical  and  intellectual  con- 
flict, hand-to-hand  and  brain-to-brain  conflict,  between  man 
and  man ;  and  that  when  that  conflict  ceased  to  be  continuous, 
tense  and  to  the  bitter  end,  then  the  stronger  brains,  housed 
in  the  stronger  bodies,  were  no  longer  the  brains  which  sur- 
vived, and  improvement  ceased. 

The  average  man,  then,  has  been  of  the  same  mental  ca- 
pacity since  before  the  days  of  the  pyramids.  Exceptional 
conditions,  as  in  the  palmy  days  of  Athens,  have  bred  a  few 
exceptional  men.  But  always  nature  has  soon  again  estab- 
lished the  ancient  average,  her  golden  mean  of  mediocrity. 

The  men  of  Egypt,  Persia,  Greece  and  Rome,  each  group 
with  the  same  intellectual  powers,  each,  that  is,  with  mechan- 
ical and  chemical  instruments  of  thought  of  almost  identical 
efficiency,  faced  in  due  course  their  respective  periods  of 
national  dominance  and  prosperity,  and,  also  in  due  course, 
showed  themselves  to  be  all  alike  incapable  of  acquiring  suf- 
ficient social  efficiency  to  carry  them  successfully  through  the 
complex  life  which  their  brief  day  of  dominion  and  wealth 
thrust  upon  them. 

Shall  we  fail  in  the  same  way  and  for  the  same  reason? 
or  is  there,  in  this  our  civilization,  any  factor  not  found  in 
its  predecessors,  which  may  enable  us  to  meet  successfully 
the  tremendous  problems  and  temptations  which  dominance 
and  accompanying  wealth  always  bring  to  a  people?  And,  if 
there  is  such  a  factor,  is  it  the  printing  press? 

When  I  name  the  printing  press  as  a  factor  in  civilization 
I  mean,  of  course,  the  habit  of  reading ;  and  when  I  say  habit 


l8         THE  SUPREME  IMPORTANCE  OF  READING 

of  reading,  I  mean  the  habit  which  is  quite  steadily  growing 
in  all  civilized  countries  of  using  print  to  gain  acquaintance 
with  the  great  mass  of  human  thought,  experience,  study  and 
imagination. 

This  mass  of  what  for  the  sake  of  brevity  we  group  under 
the  one  word  knowledge,  has  become  very  great  and  mounts 
up  with  marvelous  rapidity.  That  it  has  become  thus  large 
and  accumulates  thus  rapidly  is  chiefly  due  to  the  existence 
of  the  printing  press. 

Under  oral  tradition,  when  things  were  handed  down  by 
memory  and  speech  only,  the  sum  of  knowledge  was  small. 
The  invention  of  writing  increased  this  sum  very  consider- 
ably. The  invention  of  printing,  however,  increased  it  so 
greatly  and  so  greatly  accelerated  its  rate  of  increase  that 
both  the  mass  already  on  hand  and  the  yearly,  even  hourly, 
additions  to  it  can  hardly  be  placed  in  the  same  class  with 
the  knowledge  and  the  growth  of  knowledge  before  Guten- 
berg's day. 

Out  of  this  fact,  out  of  the  presence  in  this  our  own  civiliza- 
tion of  what  has  been  aptly  called  an  encyclopaedic  evolution, 
arises  another  question. 

Evolution,  with  its  survival  of  the  more  fit  and  the  resulting 
improvement  of  the  species,  seems  to  have  ceased  to  operate 
on  the  human  race,  so  far  at  least  as  increase  of  intellectual 
power  is  concerned,  before  history  began.  We  have  been  at 
our  best  for  full  200  generations.  During  this  long  period 
we  have  failed  again  and  again  to  cope  successfully  with  the 
evils  national  success  has  brought  in  its  train.  We  have  never 
had  to  aid  us  in  one  of  these  crises  the  habit  of  reading ; 
and  here,  perhaps,  lies  our  salvation  in  the  next  struggle  of 
civilization  for  permanence. 

But,  we  now  discover  that  the  same  invention  which  brought 
us  the  habit  of  reading  has  aroused  to  more  active  operation 
an  encyclopaedic  evolution,  an  accumulation  of  knowledge, 
vast  beyond  all  the  conceptions  of  our  predecessors.  Will  it, 
with  its  marvelous  rapidity  of  growth,  soon  be  so  vast  that 
the  race  which  created  it  will  be  submerged  by  it?  Is  the 
printing  press,  with  the  monstrous  body  of  knowledge  it  has 
permitted  us  to  gather  and  now  compels  us  daily  enormously 
to  enlarge,  is  this  to  be  our  Frankenstein? 

It  is  perhaps  not  absurd  to  say,  in  reply,  that  print  will 
overwhelm  us, — unless  we  learn  to  master  it.  That  is,  our 
civilization  faces  a  possible  shipwreck  on  the  sea  of  learning. 
The  suggestion  is  not  without  some  foundation.  Whatever 
basis  of  fact  it  may  possess  supplements  and  augments  the 
force  of  a  truth  too  familiar  to  need  more  than  merest  men- 


THE  SUPREME  IMPORTANCE  OF  READING  19 

tion, — the  increasing  value  to  men  in  every  walk  in  life  of  the 
ability  to  take  from  the  printed  page  those  facts,  arguments, 
theories  and  imaginings  that  can  help  him  in  his  calling. 
The  farmer,  the  bricklayer,  the  student  of  the  remotest 
specialty  in  medicine  and  the  merchant  of  coals  or  of  fresh 
figs,  all  can  gather  from  print  that  which  will  help  them  to 
find,  to  be  and  to  do. 

Now,  it  is  of  the  essence  of  society's  progress  that  its  units 
become  more  efficient  each  in  its  way.  No  one  thing  can 
to-day  contribute  so  much  to  the  efficiency  of  each  unit  as 
can  the  habit  of  using  print  to  learn  what  others  have  learned. 
Other  things  may  contribute  somewhat  to  this  efficiency ;  read- 
ing can  contribute  most.  All  advocates  of  education  have 
made  that  statement  the  very  foundation  of  their  faith.  It 
means  that  books  are  the  prime  tools  of  learning;  that  a 
library  is  the  most  important  of  all  laboratories,  and  that  high 
reading  power  in  our  native  tongue  is  the  most  valuable  of 
all  the  acquisitions  that  the  schools  can  give. 

Do  we  need  the  sciences?  Yes,  but  the  mother  tongue  and 
power  to  read  it  first,  for  it  is  our  language  that  makes  us 
human,  and  to  increase  our  skill  in  this  is  to  broaden  us  first 
into  citizens  of  our  country  and  finally  into  citizens  of  the 
world. 

Do  we  need  manual,  industrial,  technical,  vocational  train- 
ing? Yes;  but  reading  first,  for  reading  opens  windows 
through  which  we  can  see  life  and  learn  of  good  and  evil 
and  become  fitted  for  social  needs. 

Do  we  need  other  languages  ?  Yes  ;  but  first  our  own ;  and 
the  others  chiefly  that  they  may  strengthen  our  grasp  on  our 
own.  Opponents  of  the  classics  are  continually  forgetting 
that,  while  the  arts  and  the  sciences  they  advocate  as  the 
tools  of  training  have  to  do  with  what  they  call  tangible, 
practical  things,  the  classics,  rightly  taught,  strengthen  our 
hold  on  that  fundamental  thing,  language,  by  which  alone 
thought,  reason,  generalization,  and  perhaps  even  conscious- 
ness itself,  are  made  possible. 

Returning  to  our  argument.  Another  familiar  fact  that 
helps  to  make  the  habit  of  reading  of  supreme  importance 
should  be  noted.  Two  things  seem  to  be  essential  to  the 
continuance  of  what,  for  lack  of  better  words  we  call  civiliza- 
tion or  progress, — plasticity  and  peace.  Of  all  the  factors  that 
make  for  plasticity  with  us  none  is  as  potent  as  the  printed 
page.  He  who  reads  knows — and  he  who  knows  neither  fears 
nor  hates  the  new  in  manners,  morals  or  invention ;  and 
neither  hates  nor  fears  the  stranger  however  wonderful  his 
features  or  however  barbarous  his  customs.     And  communion 


20  THE  SUPREME  IMPORTANCE  OF  READING 

with  the  printed  page  gives  us  more  than  anything  else  can 
give  of  those  knowledges  which  bring  other  peoples  to  our 
very  doors,  teaches  us  to  know  them  and  then  to  sympathize 
with  them,  and  so  makes  it  impossible  for  us  to  hate  them  or 
fight  them.  Print  has  done  many  harmful  things ;  but  when 
we  condemn  the  weak  novel,  the  nickel  library  and  the  yellow 
journal,  we  may  well  remember  that  they  are  continually 
bringing  letters  to  Caliban;  that  in  the  long  run  print  is  for- 
ever promoting  that  learning  which  is  the  foster-mother  of 
peace. 

We  probably  read  more  than  any  other  nation ;  but  we  read 
very  little.  By  reading  is  here  meant  not  simply  reading 
with  understanding  things  which  call  for  some  thought;  but 
just  reading  of  words,  however  simple,  and  about  things  how- 
ever trivial.  The  casual  skimming  of  our  lightest  dailies, 
even  this  is  done  by  a  much  smaller  proportion  of  our  popu- 
lation than  is  commonly  supposed.  The  most  popular  of  our 
weeklies  and  monthlies  have  each  a  circulation  of  less  than  a 
million  and  a  half.  A  few  thousand  read  books  of  wisdom ; 
a  few  hundred  thousand  read  books  and  journals  of  learn- 
ing ;  a  few  millions  out  of  our  ninety  millions  read  books  and 
journals  of  minor  information  and  of  meagre  imagination ; 
and  of  the  remaining  many  millions  only  a  few  read  even  the 
headlines  of  the  most  trifling  journals. 

Scarcely  one  in  fifty  of  all  the  50,000,000  possible  readers 
of  the  country  ever  bought  a  copy  of  the  most  popular  novel ; 
not  more  than  three  or  four  in  fifty  ever  looked  at  a  copy  of 
the  most  widely  read  of  recent  novels.  Proceed  to  books  of 
some  importance,  such  as  Eliot's  "  More  Money  for  the  Public 
Schools,"  and  James's  "  Pragmatism,"  and  you  find  that  only 
a  few  thousand  out  of  the  fifty  million  ever  read  them  and 
scarcely  a  hundred  thousand  ever  looked  at  them.  Yet  these 
are  books  of  the  kind  which,  in  the  conceit  of  our  universal 
culture,  we  suppose  every  person  of  intelligence  to  be  familiar 
with.  All  the  readers  of  the  very  few  first  rate  literary  jour- 
nals we  support  probably  number  less  than  100,000. 

A  consideration  of  the  history  of  reading  and  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  human  brain  shows  us  why  the  art  is  acquired 
so  slowly,  and  in  practice  is  so  laborious  that  most  people, 
even  a  majority  of  school-taught  people,  try  to  avoid  it. 

Reading  is  a  new  art.  It  was  acquired  by  very  few  up 
to  the  invention  of  printing.  A  hundred  years  ago  it  was 
practiced  by  a  very  small  proportion  of  civilized  men.  Speech, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  a  very  ancient  art,  going  back  to  the 
days  when  daily  conflict  to  the  death  was  selecting  for  sur- 
vival the  physical  and  mental  superiors  and  permitting  them 


THE  SUPREME  IMPORTANCE  OF  READING  21 

only  to  propagate.  Speech,  not  silence,  was  then  golden.  It 
was  a  weapon  by  which  success  was  won.  The  inevitable  hap- 
pened. As  ages  went  by  those  in  whose  brains  speech  centers 
were  best  developed  lived  to  hand  on  to  offspring  that 
peculiar  excellence.  Skill  in  hearing  and  interpreting  speech 
went  with  skill  in  speaking.  As  a  result  we  find  that  to-day 
every  normal  human  being  is  born  with  well-defined  and 
cunningly  related  centers  for  speech  and  hearing  in  his  brain. 
These  centers  are  native  to  us ;  they  are  part  of  our  humanity. 

And  now,  after  countless  centuries  of  practice  in  the  use 
of  these  centers  and  of  the  organs  to  which  they  relate,  we 
invent  the  art  of  printing,  and  ask  our  brains  to  take  in 
through  the  eye  the  symbols  of  sounds.  The  sounds  them- 
selves our  mental  machinery,  after  ages  of  practice,  can 
handle  readily  with  an  apparatus  which  inheritance  gives  us. 
The  visual  symbols  of  sounds,  these  nature  has  never  provided 
us  with  cerebral  tools  to  handle. 

The  result  is  that  when  we  read,  our  eyes  transmit  the 
printed  words  to  a  visual  center  in  the  brain ;  thence  they 
pass  to  the  hearing  center ;  there  they  are  transmuted  into  the 
sounds  they  stand  for,  and  at  last  are  understood.  The  word- 
seeing  tract  is  not  native  to  us  as  is  the  word-hearing  tract; 
we  must,  each  new  generation  of  us,  develop  it  anew  by  long 
practice.  The  path  from  the  word-seeing  to  the  word-hearing 
center  is  not  given  us  by  nature,  and  we  must  compel  the 
visual  symbols  of  sound  to  travel  it  countless  times  before 
they  travel  it  with  ease !  A  few,  we  find,  have  a  divine  gift 
for  reading;  a  few  others,  without  the  gift,  have  the  wish 
and  the  will  to  persist  in  practice  until  they  read  with  ease 
and  pleasure.  The  rest  of  mankind  never  acquire  the  art  save 
in  a  crude  and  halting  way ;  and  of  them  all  only  a  few  ever 
have  power  and  patience  to  learn  to  read  other  than  simple 
and  trivial  things.  This  line  of  argument  is  familiar  enough 
and  is  cited  only  to  justify  the  conclusion  that  we  are  not  a 
nation  of  readers ! 

Several  interesting  phenomena  strengthen  the  line  of  rea- 
soning just  given.  Children,  when  learning  to  read,  pronounce 
the  words  they  see  that  the  sounds  of  them  may  reach  the 
word-hearing  center  directly,  through  the  ear,  instead  of  by 
the  new  and  difficult  route  in  the  brain,  from  the  word-seeing 
center  to  the  word-hearing  center.  Poor  readers  mumble  the 
words  they  are  reading,  that  the  speaking  center  may  help  its 
ancient  ally  the  hearing  center  to  transmute  the  visual  symbols 
of  words  into  sounds  of  words.  All  readers,  perhaps  without 
exception,  find  if  they  observe  themselves  closely  that  as  they 
read  silently  they  pronounce  in  their  minds  the  words  they 


22         THE  SUPREME  IMPORTANCE  OF  READING 

see.  This  silent  pronunciation  takes  time,  demands  a  certain 
effort,  and  only  after  long  practice  ceases  to  be  a  burden. 
The  long  practice  is  what  the  schools  should  induce  and 
lamentably  fail  to  induce. 

One  or  two  other  familiar  facts  are  worth  citing.  The 
political  spell-binder  finds  to  his  delight  that  the  people  who 
read  with  difficulty  can  listen  with  ease  and  pleasure.  They 
take  in  without  trouble,  and  without  permitting  thought  to 
disturb  the  pleasure  of  absorption,  the  flapdoodle  of  his  ora- 
tory ;  they  read  with  effort  and  reluctantly,  if  at  all,  the  care- 
ful arguments  of  the  student  and  the  philosopher.  Hence  the 
royal  oratorical  progress  across  our  country  of  our  highest 
public  servants. 

Even  the  more  intelligent  often  prefer  the  spoken  to  the 
written  word.  Among  all  the  methods  of  acquiring  knowl- 
edge of  things  worth  while,  listening  to  the  formal  lecture  is 
probably  the  poorest.  If  one  takes  note  of  those  among  whom 
this  method  of  learning  is  most  popular  one  finds  they  are 
almost  invariably  non-readers. 

The  advocates  of  story-telling  and  instruction  by  lecture  cite 
the  facts  just  mentioned  to  prove  the  admitted  fact  that  the 
ear  is  the  natural  gateway  to  the  mind  and  especially  to  the 
seat  of  reason ;  and  then  conclude  that  much  instruction 
should  be  given  through  the  ears.  This  conclusion  is  confuted 
by  the  very  facts  they  cite,  for  if  nature  developed  in  us  a 
good  word-hearing  mechanism  thousands  of  years  ago,  why 
waste  time  now  in  giving  it  needless  practice?  Moreover, 
if  skill  in  reading  daily  increases  in  importance  through  the 
swift  growth  of  our  overwhelming  mass  of  knowledge,  and 
if  that  knowledge  can  be  mastered  a  hundred  fold  more 
rapidly  by  reading  than  by  hearing,  it  is  far  more  imperative 
that  the  art  of  silent  reading  be  taught  than  the  art  of 
listening. 

To  sum. up:  we  have  no  more  mental  power  than  our 
predecessors  had  who  built  civilizations  and  then  let  them  fall 
into  ruins.  Print  may  be  the  new  factor  which  will  save  our 
civilization.  Print  is  so  rapidly  promoting  encyclopaedic  evo- 
lution that  our  learning  may  overpass  our  powers  of  gen- 
eralization and  application.  To  prevent  this  we  must  become 
a  race  of  skillful  print-users.  It  is  of  supreme  importance, 
therefore,  that  we  learn  to  read.  At  present  we  read  little 
because  the  art  is  one  for  which  our  brains  do  not  inherit  the 
apparatus. 


ITNIV1 


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